I absolutely love Tosca Reno and her story in The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged. Like many women, she spent most of her life living the day-to-day unhealthy struggles that many of us endure. Then at 40 years old, she finally made the change to clean eating.

This book contains a ton of  key information to get you on the right track. She breaks down the truth about fast food horror. I know each of you “know” how bad the drive-thru menu can be, but until you read her words and see the facts, you will never truly grasp the havoc you are causing to you and your family’s body with each meal.

This book teaches you how to read food labels along with the truth about organic labels. There are tons of inspirational testimonies from women just like you and I all over the world. Testimonies really do a lot for me mentally. It inspires me to know I’m not alone in my struggles and that even those in bad health can pull themselves back up and turn their health around.

I’m in love with so many of the recipes included within the pages of this book. If only I had enough time to try every one of them for the next month!

One of my favorite chapters is about learning how to shop. She teaches you how to make it easy and how to avoid those pesky temptations.

Some of her tips include:

Never shop hungry. If you shop hungry, you are destined to fail when you roll down the cookie aisle. You will make unhealthy choices because you truly are not thinking clearly.

Make a list. Before you leave home, make a grocery list. Once you arrive at the store, walk in with a plan to stick to the list. No exceptions!

Shop the perimeter. This is my favorite tip and the BEST one I think. Think about it. All of the fresh veggies, fruits, eggs and lean meats are located on the outer walls of the store. These are your main foods that you should be eating since your goal is to eat only the freshest and healthiest food possible. We call the center aisle the “garbage aisles” because they are the aisles that contain most of your processed foods and surgery items. Now, I’m not saying you won’t ever need to venture down those aisles because at some point you will need things like almond flour, tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce, canned beans and vegetables, Truvia (stevia), oatmeal, bottled water, toilet paper, etc. But for the most part you need to avoid those aisles at all cost.

This woman knows her stuff! I am currently reading this one and so far love the clean eating guidelines she offers. This book is packed with inspiration, more testimonies in detail, ways to feed your appetite on a busy schedule, how to avoid sabotage, and yo-yo dieting. She also includes a full chapter of recipes that help enhance your immune system, digestion, fight hunger, weight loss, and more.

Within these pages is the complete framework for eating clean, detox regimens, and – my favorite – the top 10 eating clean and eating out strategies.

“Strategy trumps willpower!” – Rachel Cosgrove

The New Rules of Lifting for Women is a new book in my collection. I haven’t been able to totally bury my head in it yet, but I will this week. I have skimmed through the pages and am utterly excited to view and try these new recipes. I love to cook and being able to  do it in a healthy way makes me very happy!

This was another FABULOUS gift from my Nate! He is the BEST! Most of you know I totally support women lifting heavy weights and wish more understood that lifting heavy weights is NOT going to make you bulky. You have to lift weights to build muscle and get that toned body you want.

This book is written by some of my favorites. When I’m reading this, I turn into a sponge and soak up everything I can. It’s packed with information on how to target fat loss, meal plans, workout programs, myths vs. facts, and much more.

I especially enjoyed the part about why women should lift weights and understanding the importance in doing so. It explains why machines are a waste of time, and why you shouldn’t use them. I highly recommend this read!

The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook is the best gluten-free cookbook ever! At least for me, so far. I take pride in feeding my family the cleanest and healthiest versions of food possible. Especially for my daughter who loves sweets! This book is packed with delicious recipes and the best part is that they don’t use WHITE OR WHEAT FLOUR! (Many people are allergic to gluten and removing it from the diet improves health, digestion, fat loss and more.)

Personally, I think a person should never be stuck without a good book. You never know when life may take a wild turn leaving you in a spot where you have some time to waste like sitting in a doctor’s office 30 minutes before your appointment or while your car is being serviced – just to name a few.

I believe in taking notes any time you are reading something educational or that you plan to apply to your daily living in some way. This helps you grasp the information better and have an outline on hand if you ever need a refresher.

Never get rid of a book after you finish reading it. I always like to read a book at least twice. Let’s face it, every time you watch a movie the second time around you always find a scene you missed the first time. So, why not read a book again and find something you missed during the first time through. (Like the night you fell asleep reading. I bet you mindlessly skimmed over a few paragraphs before heading off into dreamland!)

Jessica

“I may not be there yet, but I’m closer than I was yesterday.”

Whether it’s through facebook, text messages, emails, a blog post, or face-to-face conversation, I’m constantly offering advice, helpful solutions, and ways to inspire others to lose weight and get in shape. I know that weight loss does NOT occur over night and that it takes HARD work. I try to remind people of this all the time. I’m always the one telling people to forget the number on the scale and to enjoy the experience of their clothes getting looser and body changing. So today, I’m here to share my confession….

This week I have been “having a moment” as I like to say. I have been down in the dumps and discouraged. On Monday, I decided I needed to start a new meal plan in hopes of budging the number on the scale downward as it has been staying in one place lately. This lead me to tears yesterday when I realized I had lost only one pound after following the new meal plan and exercising hard all week. A one-pound loss is a healthy rate for my size and a good sign of continual progress. In fact, for most people, a one-pound loss each week is right on target especially for us women (men lose a little more than a pound a week on average).

Like many of you, I wanted an overnight fix and, logically, this just isn’t possible unless, of course, you chose to have some type of plastic surgery that removes the fat and skin immediately or use a very low-calorie meal plan or “diet” pill that causes you to lose a lot of water weight along with muscle only to gain all the weight back and more later!

However, I expected better results for everything I did. I kicked my training into double time. I worked out 6 days this past week and, trust me, I don’t lift pink dumbbells! Working so hard and eating right is supposed to be what burns fat, right? I know that is a true statement and even though I know it takes time, I allowed myself to focus on a number and open up the pitty party door.

This was a huge mistake and created a downhill spiral effect. Nate knew I was upset with my progress and called me out on it. I went to bed last night in a crummy mood and upset about the slow changes. I woke up with the crappy attitude of “I give up” and moped into the gym at 10:00 am for training with little motivation.

One of my friends, and Underground Fitness Revolution client’s (Laura), was here to train with us and immediately noticed my not-so-happy persona. I wasn’t here two minutes when Nate noticed it again and called me out on it. I started feeling sorry for myself and cried like a baby for the next five minutes in the bathroom.

You would be surprised what staring into a tiny bathroom mirror can do for you. It was my “ah-ha” moment. I had to get a hold of myself fast. This “feeling sorry for myself” garbage wasn’t cutting it and it was time to train. I had 2 minutes to suck it up and get back to working toward my goals. “Negative Nancy,” as Nate called me last night and this morning, got punched in the face and was out the door by the time we finished our warm up. I’m upset with myself for getting so worked up. I have come a very long way and have done so many things I never thought I could have done. I am stronger in both mind and body.

It took Nate calling me out in front of Laura for me to realize that I wasn’t listening to my own advice that I give to so many others that are trying to lose weight and get in shape!

Bottom line: gaining weight is so much easier and more fun along the way. Eating what you want, not exercising, going out and doing whatever may feel great at the time. And it sure is easy to do. And we don’t always see that we’re gaining weight or that our clothes are getting tighter until weeks, months or even YEARS later. But the body looking back at you in the mirror when you are in that state is nothing any of us enjoy seeing.

Losing weight is HARD! It takes a ton of desire, discipline, dedication and hard work. Your muscles will burn and your joints and bones may even ache. The good news is that even with all of the bad the good shines through. Your clothes start getting looser and they eventually become too big. Your self-confidence improves and you start to hold your head a little higher.

By the time I finished today’s workout I had my brain back where it’s supposed to be. I made a huge improvement on two different exercises within our program that I had previously been struggling with and increased the load in almost everything today.

Working out is my motivation. Every time I train, I feel how much stronger I’m getting and it reminds me that my hard work is paying off. I’m not yet prancing around in those size 4 jeans I want so badly but I’m on the right track.

I guess what I’m trying to say is – like you – I’m human. I lose motivation at times. I want to rush things so my progress comes faster. I get frustrated that all my hard work results in such small changes each day or week even though I know those small changes lead to bigger changes that over time provide the awesome results we all want!

It’s easy to offer advice and encourage others with their fat loss and fitness goals when we’re not focused on our own goals or progress. But when we take a look at what we’re doing, we realize that it’s not easy. That it does take hard work. That it does take time. That we don’t always have the motivation to eat right or train hard. We all have our days no matter how hard we try. We just have to remember why we are doing what we do and how important our goals are. Then hit the gym and Crank it harder than you have in a while!

Have a GREAT weekend!

-Jess

“Our food should be our medicine, and our medicine should be our food.” – Hippocrates

Whenever I post to my facebook page about a new healthy recipe I’ve found or cooked, at least one person has had something negative to say about why they can’t eat it for some reason (essentially they are creating an excuse for not eating healthful food). This drives me crazy!

If you choose to improve your health and make better eating habits for yourself and your family, you need to first understand something before you ever get started. Consuming “clean” and healthful food does NOT mean you may continue eating the greasy, sugary or processed food that you may have been used to eating beforehand. If you truly want to change the way you eat, you’ll need to eliminate those foods or find healthier versions of the food you love so you will lose weight and feel better. You will have to give every new recipe or healthy food time for your taste buds to adjust as you’re basically retraining your palate.

In the process of putting together my own healthy eating cookbook, I have been using our Underground Fitness Revolution members as my taste testers. They are all here to change their lives and get in better shape. They must learn new eating habits to achieve their goals and come to appreciate all of the new meals, snacks and recipes to support their healthy lifestyle.

We want to educate our clients and others that eating healthy does NOT mean you are limited to eating salads, plain veggies and grilled or boiled chicken breasts. We eat a large variety of food in our home and rarely eat the same thing within a week. (Unless, of course, we’re talking about my favorite Vanilla Almond Cinnamon Mocha Protein shake!)

Last week, I baked a protein-packed bread made without flour. I have been on a mission to bake a bread that I could eat whenever I wanted and not worry about the disastrous side effects of white or wheat flour, gluten or having it interfere with my weight loss. I made two different recipes and am proud to say after these trial runs that it’s now perfected!

When people hear the word “bread,” they immediately think of the fluffy, crumbly goodness that comes with it. For me, after eating clean for several months, even a bite of something with flour causes excruciating pain (as I learned over the holidays when I ate one of my step dad’s famous gingerbread cookies!).

If you have not tried a healthy protein-packed recipe in place of a regular recipe that contains sugar and flour, you may not realize that the texture of the protein-packed recipe will be different. When you replace flour with protein powder or replace whole eggs with egg whites, the texture changes.

This is where you have to make a decision:

Continue eating the foods that make you sick, unhealthy and fat or replace those foods with healthier versions that don’t have the negative side effects and help you achieve your fat loss goals.

The texture may be different, and it may take some time to get used to it, but now you have a bread where you could sit down and eat the whole loaf in one sitting and not load up on all the flour and carbs – whereas before you couldn’t have any type of bread without it causing negative side effects including G.I. distress, bloat, fatigue and weight gain.

As an example, most of the “whole wheat” bread on the shelf in your local grocery store isn’t as healthy as you think. Labels are deceiving. My rule of thumb is if something contains more than 4-6 ingredients or has words you can’t pronounce, then it’s safe to say it’s not a good choice. If the bread is truly 100% whole wheat or all-natural, it will have few ingredients and its shelf life will be drastically reduced and will require refrigeration or immediate consumption as it will spoil within a few days or a week. I learned this after buying bread for my daughter’s sandwiches. It will last 4-5 days on the counter but a week or two in the fridge.

I am a Southern girl so I know what meat and potatoes are all about! As well as how yummy it can be to soak up all the extra gravy with grandma’s yummy biscuits. I also now know just how deadly those types of food can be within the body and how they stop fat loss in its tracks. But being the Southern girl I am and after eating that way for 26 years, I knew I had to make my new way of eating just as delicious in order to not fail or “cheat.”

I am happy to say with a little bit of dedication and education I have found hundreds of new ways to prepare food that I love in a way that I can consume them now and not wreak havock on my body. Below is my new Greek Yogurt Protein Pancake recipe. I promise that even if you don’t like Greek yogurt you’ll love these pancakes! You won’t be able to tell there is Greek yogurt in them. They are loaded with protein and nutrients and my favorite part is that they taste and look a lot like the flap jacks my father used to make when I was a child. Put some sugar-free syrup on them and BAM! You’ll have a yummy healthy breakfast to get your day started right!

 

Greek Yogurt Protein Pancakes

2 cups Plain Nonfat Greek Yogurt

1 scoop of Vanilla Whey Protein Powder

1 1/2 cups Ground Flaxseed Meal

1 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder

3/4 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Sea Salt

2 Whole Eggs

2 Tbsp. of Truvia (6 packs)

Add all ingredients to a blender and blend well. The ingredients will make a very thick consistency. Pour small patties (about 2 inches) as they will expand to 4-5 inches. Cook in a nonstick pan like you would any pancake. Do not flip until the bottom is fully cooked. You will see bubbles on top. Top with some real butter, sugar-free syrup, a small amount of real maple syrup or local, raw unpasteurized honey and serve. DE-LISH!

Jessica & Nate

“Everything you do is either moving you closer to or farther away from your goals.” – Alwyn Cosgrove

Success or Failure? It’s your choice! This is a mindset that I try to instill in all our Underground Fitness Revolution clients. If you decide to sleep in and skip a workout, that takes you away from your goal. On the other hand, if you choose to say “no” to the pizza and doughnuts in the office and eat your healthy lunch from Meal Movement or brought from home instead, that takes you closer to your goal. Every choice you make takes you closer to one of these places – success or failure. Which choice will you make?

Making a transformation in your body starts with personal responsibility. You need to accept that everything about success is under your control. If you plan and prepare properly, you’ll move in the right direction. If you are lazy or make poor decisions when you should know better, you’ll struggle, or worse, you’ll regress. This is an important mindset shift you need to make. The sooner, the better.

In order to move closer to your goals you eventually need to do things you’ve never done before. You have to get out of your comfort zones and past routines. For fat loss, that means planning and preparing your nutrition schedule for the week ahead as well as scheduling mandatory exercise appointments.

It is tempting to remain in your comfort zones. But that is not where you grow, improve, and make the changes necessary to dramatically move ahead. Your challenge is to do the opposite. Look at what you are doing to stay in your comfort zone and think, “What is the opposite action of my instinct? And would this opposite action be the better solution?”

For a fat loss client, your natural preference may be to wake up with just enough time to shower, dress, and drive to work while picking up a coffee and possibly a pastry for breakfast. Then it’s work until you’re starving, rush out for a fast food calorie-bomb lunch, fuel up with more coffee for the afternoon, and then rush home from work to take care of the family. After dinner, the instinct is to relax with some unnecessary calories (such as ice cream, alcohol, or snack foods) and television programs.

Unfortunately, this entire day would take you in the wrong direction – away from your goals of being fit and healthy. This daily schedule would not allow you to be the best that you can be. Instead, you must make the choices that move you closer to your goals. This includes getting up early to exercise, preparing meals the night before (or using Meal Movement), and implementing rituals that helps you avoid eating excess junk food at night.

A successful person realizes that things must change if you want your situation to improve. Preparation is key. Habits must be revamped. Time must be blocked for productive activity. And social support, via hanging around positive people who support their goals, is an essential component of success.

You make these changes by setting rules for your new life.

The successful fat loss client says:

• I will eat according to my fat loss plan 90% of the time.
• I will have only one cheat meal per week.
• I will workout on these days at this time – no excuses.
• I will do my weekly shopping and food preparation every weekend (or order Meal Movement to save time).
• I will contact my social support group every day to check in and get motivation.

Those are the rules that will take you closer to your goal. These are non-negotiable. When you make this level of commitment, your success is a given. Everything else is just details. I’ve witnessed it over and over again in the last three years at Underground Fitness Revolution.

These simple rules will take you closer to your goals. Breaking them will take you farther away. Success, as you can see, is a simple equation.

If you want to transform your body, simply remember that every action is under your control. What you choose to do determines the results you will achieve.

Never forget that, and never give up on your goals.

Nate & Jessica

“Ask yourself if you could go back and start over – would you be doing different things now. Don’t be scared to start over now. If it’s education, your career, your life, your fitness program – don’t be afraid to continually grow so much and so quickly that you need to stop and rethink everything you’re doing.” – Alwyn Cosgrove

I recently received a message from a facebook user wanting to clarify something she read. Here’s her question followed by my answer.

Q.) I have a question, is this true?

Too Much Protein
“So think twice when you consider sacrificing the carbohydrates for a protein-dominant diet, Butterfield says. Drastically cutting carbohydrates from your diet may force your body to fight back.

She says that’s because a diet in which protein makes up more than 30% of your caloric intake causes a buildup of toxic ketones. So-called ketogenic diets can thrust your kidneys into overdrive in order to flush these ketones from your body. As your kidneys rid your body of these toxic ketones, you can lose a significant amount of water, which puts you at risk of dehydration, particularly if you exercise heavily.

That water loss often shows up on the scale as weight loss. But along with losing water, you lose muscle mass and bone calcium. The dehydration also strains your kidneys and puts stress on your heart.

And dehydration from a ketogenic diet can make you feel weak and dizzy, give you bad breath, or lead to other problems.”

A.) Although there are some truths to that, it’s really an oversimplification and very misleading.

Let me try to clear it up for you.

There is no research showing that consuming more than 30% of your daily diet in protein causes problems to the kidneys or the body in healthy individuals unless following a ketogenic diet or looking at studies that used patients that already had kidney malfunctions in the first place!

In fact, recent research shows that consuming 30% or more of your calories from protein helps the body burn fat, boost metabolism and build and maintain muscle mass even when overeating up to 1,000 calories more than what you need to maintain your weight – read the story and research HERE.

In fact, the Meal Movement program we recommend has you consuming up to 60% of your daily diet in protein. But you’re also consuming veggies with all those meals. It works and it keeps you healthy! It also follows our “protein, produce and water” guidelines (more on that below).

When cutting carbohydrates from your diet, you should eliminate all starchy and processed carbs (bread, pasta, rice, crackers, cookies, cereal, bagels, baked goods, etc.).

This means you should still consume veggies with all meals and snacks as well as some fruit (1-3 servings/day). A diet where meals and snacks consist of veggies and/or fruits will provide all the carbohydrates your body needs to fuel itself as well as protect your body from becoming too acidic. Veggies also help keep your body’s pH levels where they should be.

If you remove all carbohydrates from your diet including veggies/fruit, then you will go into ketosis and also make your body very acidic which does put stress on the kidneys and causes your body to become sick due to an imbalance with your pH levels – and this invites disease as well.

If you eliminate all carbs (including veggies/fruits), you will lose a lot of water weight initially. However, as long as your protein intake is high (30% or higher), you should still maintain muscle mass as the recent study I posted showed.

With that said, I DO NOT recommend a ketogenic diet (like the original Atkins program and some of the other fad diets out there).

I do recommend “protein, produce and water” and Meal Movement because it eliminates the processed and starchy carbs from your diet while keeping you healthy and maintaining muscle mass. This keeps you from ever getting into ketosis or suffering the side effects of weakness, dizziness or bad breath and health problems.

Our “protein, produce and water” guidelines mean the following:

- Consume high-quality protein with every meal and snack (chicken, beef, fish, pork, wild game meat, whole eggs, nonfat plain Greek yogurt, cottage cheese and high-quality whey protein).

- Consume veggies with ALL meals (they provide fiber, many nutrients and help balance the body’s pH levels)

- Consume fruit in the morning or post-workout only. Fruit is good for you, but too much can still overfill your sugar stores. Also, remember to EAT YOUR FRUIT, DO NOT DRINK THE JUICE. Fruit juice is nothing but pure sugar – even if it says no sugar added. Eat a whole piece of fruit and always skip the juice.

- Consume beans/legumes within moderation (black beans, navy beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, etc.). They provide fiber and help fill you up. Avoid baked beans – they are loaded with sugar.

- Consume healthy fats from grass-fed beef, wild salmon, whole eggs, raw nuts and seeds, nut butters, avocado, olive oil, macadamia nut oil, coconut oil, omega-3 fish oil, etc.

- Consume at least half your body-weight in fluid ounces of water each day. If you weigh 150lbs, you should consume at least 75 ounces of water each day. Your urine should be clear.

- DO NOT drink your calories. Drink water, green tea or flavored water (in moderation). Remove the milk, soda, fruit juice and other calorie-containing drinks from your diet. The average person consumes 450 calories per day through calorie-containing drinks!

- Consume high-quality starchy carbs (and fruit) for breakfast or within 1 hour of an intense total-body metabolic workout only. High-quality starchy carbs include oatmeal, sweet potatoes, quinoa, spelt, millet, millet and flax, flaxseed bread, Lavish, Ezekiel bread and other sprouted breads/pasta.

You MUST “earn” your carbs. There are two times of the day when you “earn” your carbs. You earn them first thing in the morning and immediately post-workout. If you don’t train hard, you don’t earn starchy carbs that day. That means you should only have 1-2 servings of high-quality starchy carbs each day. If you eat carbs with all meals and snacks (as most people do), your body cannot process and use all the carbs. The body breaks carbs down into sugar in the body. If you’re eating carbs all the time, it will not be able to use the carbs as energy because the body’s glycogen stores are already overfilled. It then stores these carbs as FAT in the body.

It also makes you more insulin resistant. And if you are overweight, you are already more insulin resistant and this causes your body to automatically store more food as fat rather than as glycogen or muscle. This is why processed and starchy carbs need to be restricted in the diet especially the more overweight you are.

A typical meal means that HALF or more of your plate is veggies, approximately 1/3 is protein and the rest includes healthy fats (notice that there are NO starchy carbs). This is how your meals outside of the post-workout window should look like each day. Snacks should contain protein/healthy fats – think raw almonds or a couple cheese sticks or a protein shake or Greek yogurt with walnuts or cottage cheese with walnuts. The meal within an hour after your intense total-body metabolic workout should consist of 1/2 veggies/fruit, 1/4 starchy carbs, and about 1/4 protein.

For more about how to divide your plate, see this wonderful article by Dr. John Berardi of Precision Nutrition and the “My Plate” recommendations. These are the guidelines we recommend for best results. Download and print the Precision Nutrition “My Plate” graphics of the “Anytime Meal” and “Post-Workout Meal” and post them on your fridge.

If you do the above, you will lose weight, stay healthy, feel great and not have all the problems of a ketogenic diet or any other fad diet.

Remember, the Greek word for “diet” means “a way of living.” It’s not something you do for a short time to lose weight, it’s a lifestyle!

Crank it!

Nate & Jessica